I'm an outlier in that one album would be totally fine, it might be a bummer but if that's all that happened and it was good, why not be anything but content? I also think as far as the music thing goes you're vastly overestimating the cost associated with recording an album, unless you're going for a very...I don't know...major? sound. Same thing for touring, unless you're Pomplamousse, touring ain't a ton of fun, at least not as much as it's portrayed by our classic rock idols. But you can do it in a frugal way and make the most of it. Even in your comment you're going back to the concept of "making it big", that's a central tenet of the argument. Why is that even at the forefront of the discussion?

Life is constantly moving and not perfectly sustainable, I think we can agree with that and I can agree with growing as a person and learning as much as possible. Those are great things to strive for. However, a lot of this is revolving around more more more, happiness comes after, not before.